Time Use

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Time Use Delinquency Theory, Research,
Implications for Risk and Prevention

• D. Wayne Osgood
• Crime, Law and Justice Program
• Department of Sociology
• Pennsylvania State University

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In Collaboration with

• Amy Anderson
• Jerry Bachman
• Dana Haynie
• Julie Horney
• Lloyd Johnston
• Barbara McMorris
• Kim Menard

• Pat OMalley
• Jennifer Shaffer
• Sonja Siennick
• Brent Teasdale
• Ryan Williams
• Janet Wilson

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Some Themes for This Symposium

• The pestilence fallacy
• Are social ills always caused by other social
  ills?
• Contrast to risk as a liberal vs. critical
  conundrum?
• Theory vs. risk protective
• Focus of explanation
• Structural and interpersonal
• vs. Cultural
• vs. Intrapsychic
• Situational, as opposed to personal history

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Routine Activity Perspective on Crime

• Shifts attention
• From the personal histories of offenders
• To the dependence of crime on opportunities
• Emphasizes embeddedness of opportunities in
  routine activities of everyday life.
• Applications have emphasized
• Group differences in victimization
• Time trends in aggregate crime rates
• Predatory offenses

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• Necessary elements for crime to occur(Cohen and
  Felson, 1979)
• Motivated Offender
• Suitable Target
• Absence of Capable Guardians
• Goal of our work (Osgood et al., ASR,
  1996)--extend routine activity perspective
• To variation in individuals' rates of offending
• To a broader range of deviant behavior

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Earlier Research Time Use Deviance

• Involvement" or "idle hands" hypothesis
• Activities of deviant subculture
• From various studies, deviance associated with
• Socializing with peers,
• In unstructured activities,
• That are unlikely to be supervised.
• Interesting features
• Not inherently deviant
• Common in everyday life of adolescents

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Extending the Routine Activity Perspective to
Individual Offending

• "Situational Motivation" instead of "Motivated
  Offender"
• We assume these acts are prompted by short-term
  situationally induced desires experienced by all
  boys Briar Piliavin, 1965
• Openness to deviance, not motivation for deviance
• We apply situational explanation to offender
• Premise The more time spent in situations
  conducive to deviance, the more offending.

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Situations Conducive to Deviance Most Prevalent

• During time spent with peers.
• Can provide assistance
• Primary source of symbolic rewards
• An appreciative audience
• In the absence of authority figures
• People with situated role obligation to respond
  to deviance.
• Leisure activities away from adult family members
• Engaged in unstructured activities
• That leave time available for deviance

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Primary test Monitoring the Future

• National probability samples of high school
  seniors, classes of 1977 - 1981.
• Five waves of data, ages 18 - 26
• 1,732 respondents.
• Strengths of dataset
• Size
• National representation
• Number of waves of data
• Weaknesses of sample
• Exclusion of high-school drop-outs
• 20 of age cohort
• Self administration, self report

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Measures of Routine Activities Unstructured
Socializing

• How often do you
• Ride around in a car (or motorcycle) just for fun
• 1. Never, 2. A few times a year, 3. Once or twice
  a month, 4. At least once a week, 5. Almost
  everyday
• Get together with friends, informally
• Go to parties or other social affairs
• During a typical week, on how many evenings do
  you go out for fun and recreation?
• 1. Less than one, - 6. Six or seven

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Measures of Deviance

• Criminal Behavior
• 10 Items, including seriously injure, steal by
  force, break enter, theft lt 50, vandalism, . .
  .
• Heavy Alcohol Use
• 5 or more drinks in a row in past 2 weeks
• Marijuana Use
• 0 (none in past 12 months) -- 9 (40 in last 30
  days)
• Other Illicit Drug Use
• 8 Different drugs, including cocaine,
  amphetamines, hallucinogens, etc.
• Dangerous Driving
• Traffic tickets and traffic accidents in past 12
  months

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Within-individual Regressions of Deviant
Behaviors on Activities.
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Studies Finding that Unstructured Socializing is
Associated with Deviance

• Junger Wiegersma, 1995
• Osgood et al., 1996
• Hawdon, 1996
• Hawdon, 1999
• Mahoney Stattin, 2000
• Piquero Brezina, 2001

• Hundleby, 1987
• Riley, 1987
• Agnew and Peterson, 1989
• Wallace Bachman, 1991
• Posner Vandell, 1994
• Stoolmiller, 1994

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Dimensions of Replication

• Age
• From 9 (Posner Vandell, 1994)
• To 26 (Osgood et al. 1996)
• Gender (Galambos and Maggs, 1991)
• Ethnicity
• African American (Wallace and Bachman, 1991)
• Varieties of deviance (various authors)
• Crime delinquency Illicit Drugs
• Alcohol Use Dangerous Driving

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Dimensions of Replication

• Qualitative methods (Botcher, 1995)
• High and Low Risk populations
• Siblings of incarcerated offenders (Botcher,
  1995)
• New prisoners (Shaffer, Horney, Osgood)
• International
• U.S. Canada (most) Sweden (Mahoney, 2000)
• Netherlands (Junger, 1995) Britain (Riley,
  1987)
• Cross-cultural (Schlegel Barry, 1991)
• Variation across 50 pre-literate cultures

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Time Use as an Explanatory Bridge to Social
Structure

• Age, sex, and class diffs (Osgood et al., 1996)
• Marriage desistance (Warr 1998, Osgood
  Siennick)
• Teen employment (Osgood, Teasdale, Menard)
• Gang membership (Osgood Williams)
• Aggregate delinquency rates (Osgood Anderson)
• Context effect of unstr. socializing on delinq.
• Context effect of parental monitoring on
  activities

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Developmental Trends in Unstructured Socializing

• Increases through adolescence
• Why the change with age?
• Parental/adult response to growth in skills and
  judgment
• Supervision less necessary for safety and
  training
• Anticipation of independent living
• Decrease with transition to adulthood
• Growing responsibilities will decrease time
  available

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Does Unstructured Socializing Cause Offending?

• Extensive control variables (Haynie Osgood)
• 16 substantively relevant demographic and
  theory-based variables
• Longitudinal relationship (Haynie Osgood)
• Predict over 1 year lag, controlling for prior
  delinquency
• Within-individ. relationship (Osgood et al.,
  1996)
• Fixed effects analysis
• Controls for all stable individual differences
• Still needed Experimental test

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Is the Association Due to Opportunity?

• Discriminant validity
• Unstructured socializing, and not other time use
• Coordination within individuals over time
• Within-Person Analyses
• 1 to 2 years (Osgood et al., 1996)
• Monthly (Shaffer, Horney, Osgood)
• Time of day and offending
• NIBRS arrest incident data (Snyder Sickmund,
  1999)
• Does offending arise during unstructured
  socializing?
• Research still needed

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Is the Association Due to Opportunity?Does it
depend on having delinquent peers?

• Potential challenge relationship could be due
  to differential association/social learning
• If so, controlling for peer delinquency will
  eliminate it
• Or only applies when associates are delinquent
• Opportunity might be minor addition to normative
  influence explanation
• Haynie Osgood tested with Add Health data
• Independent measure of peer delinquency
• Modeling takes into account skewed distribution

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Peer Dimensions in Relation to Delinquency

• Standardized Tobit Regression Coefficients
•   Cross-Sectional Longitudinal
• Explanatory Variable b t
  b t
• Friends Delinquency .108 9.91 .056 5.54
• Unstructured Socializing .144 12.62 .041 3.80
• Prior Delinquency .484 45.16
•   R2 .22 .41
•  N 8838
•  
• Models include 16 additional control variables.

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The Interaction of Peer Delinquency and
Unstructured Socializing

• Unstandardized tobit regression coefficients
•    
  Cross-Sectional Longitudinal
• Explanatory Variable b t b
  t
• Friends Delinquency .037 9.96 .021 5.62
• Unstructured Socializing .107 7.97 .039 2.92
• Unstructured Socializing -.002 -1.12 -.002 -.
  97
• Friends Minor Delinquency
• Prior Delinquency .569 45.16
• R2 .22 .41
• N 8838
• Models include 16 additional control variables.

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Does the effect of time usedepend on propensity?
McMorris Osgood

• General Theory of Crime (GH) the two necessary
  elements
• Matza Sykes subterranean values
• Positive value for deviance part of general
  culture
• Prediction
• Propensity unstructured socializing may
  interact
• But effect of unstructured socializing should be
  relatively general

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Implications for Policy/Prevention I

• Contrast with fixing social ills
• Wealth and class bring greater independence
  mobility (not less)
• Parent restrict unstructured socializing in most
  deprived neighborhoods (not more)
• So, Not a matter of fixing high risk kids
• Structured activities not automatic answer
• Swedish youth centers (Mahoney et al. 2001)
• Employment -gt more hanging out
• Irony low grade time use is preventive

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Activity Programs as Prevention

• Potential benefit at individual contextual
  levels
• But must
• Reach kids who need program the most
• Offer structured activities
• Replace unstructured socializing (not TV time)
• Not alter increase unstructured socializing
  before after program hours
• Not enhance peer resources for unstructured
  socializing

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Future Directions for Research

• Results encouraging to date
• A major correlate of delinquency and deviance, on
  a par with others prominent in the field
• Topics needing further attention
• Better measurement (Primary rather than secondary
  analyses)
• How often offending arises during unstructured
  socializing
• How much offending is spontaneous?
• Experimental tests (via intervention programs)